This paper is specifically based on several years of Intensive study of Chinese motion pictures -that is, fictional feature films -from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and especially from Communist China. The viewpoint embodied here, however, also relates to extensive prior experience in studying Chinese socal behavior -especially the basic conceptions and premise« which underlie and structure overt behavior -In a variety of other forms, Including direct anthropological field observation and interviewing in

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... Chinese communities in the United States, in Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, plus other work at second hand, both In trying to make more unified sense of the reports of other professional or lay observers, and in studying projections of various aspects of the culture In the productions of Chinese artists«, writers, dramatists, and actors. Any attempt at discussing ray current film studies in a brief compass face« the important difficulty of an embarrassment of riches. I have now viewed and considered at some length 21 films made in Communist China, six films made in Hong Kong under Chinese Communist influence, 12 other Hong Kong films, and five Taiwan films, in addition to secondary accounts of many other films from these sources. Any single one of these films is a mine of information on Chinese social behavior -visual information, verbal information, and information from the interrelations of these two modes of communication. Of course the depictions in these films are not "real" everyday behavior,